I awoke to his familiar touch, his fingers intertwining with my long, dark hair, and felt his breath on my ear, which sent shivers down my spine.
"I've been waiting to do this all day."
In my half-sleep, half-wake state, the slow heat began, our private dance of passion that we'd perfected in our years together. I reached back with my right arm, grasping his hand, pushing the curve of my body back into his, trying to fit as closely to him as possible, needing his solid warmth to become an extension of my own. Not letting go of my hand, he traced a path down my body, and I bit my lip, torn between wanting to prolong the sweet agony of anticipation and the desperate need to touch him, have him touch me, bring our bodies together in release as we'd done so many times before.
"Please." I murmured, my breathing ragged and needy.
He knew me too well. "Not yet." He whispered, putting his mouth on the curve where my neck and shoulder met, and I shuddered. "We have plenty of time."
Plenty of time. Time. There was no more time.
I rolled over to face him, my beautiful Jason. He was just as I remembered him, his reddish-brown hair tousled, his blue eyes loving and kind. I reached out to cup his face in my hand, leaned in to kiss him, desperate for this to be real, praying that everything else had been the dream, not this. I could feel him, feel his skin under my hand, feel his lips pressing gently on mine. How could I feel so much? This had to be real.
"I know everything." He said, softly, nothing changing in his expression. His voice, however, sounded colder than I'd ever heard it, so cold that it felt as if he'd doused my body in ice water. "It's your fault that I died."
"What?" I pulled away, my heart pounding in fear and confusion. "I don't understand, Jason."
"Secrets don't keep forever, Daphne." The expression on his face twisted from one of love into one of pure hatred. "I know yours. I know all of them."
"Please, Jason, no!" Tears filled my eyes, I grabbed his hands, but he yanked them away, and I begged. "Let me explain, I never meant for you to get hurt, I was trying to keep you and the girls separate, keep you safe!"
"I know what you are." He sneered at me, looking nothing like the man I'd loved for so long, the man who would have fought hell on earth for his family. "You're an abomination. You should have been killed as a child, should have ended the shameful, perverse affliction that you carry, that you more than likely passed down to our daughters. All of you, every freak of nature in this cursed town should have their lives ended so that you can never hurt decent, normal people again!"
"You're wrong!" I sobbed, clutching at him in vain as he pushed me away roughly. "Our daughters are not freaks, I am not a freak, no one who suffers from the Troubles deserves to be murdered for something they can't control!"
"I never would have married you, I never would have created those two evil creatures with you if I'd known." He practically spat at me. "You deserve every bit of pain and suffering that comes your way. All of you do. Your mother deserved to die."
I was sobbing so hard that I could no longer speak as he hurled those words at me, and I felt my soul praying that this nightmare would end, I'd wake up, I'd no longer hear the man I loved with my entire being spewing such venom at me, at our daughters, the children we'd created out of love.
"You never should have kept it a secret from me. You should have stayed in Maine with your own kind." A strange, revolting smile spread across his face. "You'll pay for that, Daphne. You'll pay for deceiving me. My only regret is that I won't be the one to make you suffer." His smile grew even more gruesome, as if the idea of causing me pain gave him pleasure. "You were born to suffer."
I bolted upright in bed, drenched in sweat, unable to control my terrified screaming, unable to stop the screams. As I fought to focus on the room in front of me, as my screams pierced the apartment, as I slapped at my arms to get the feel of his touch off of me, the bedroom door opened and Duke came running in.
"Daphne!" He rushed to my side, grabbing my arms and trying to hold me still. "You just had a nightmare, you're safe! You're in Haven, no one will hurt you!"
I tried to swallow the screams unsuccessfully for a couple of minutes, but when I finally realized that I was awake, that Duke was sitting on the bed next to me, Duke was holding my arms, trying to calm and comfort me, they subsided into deep, heavy breaths punctuated by ragged sobs.
"It was just a dream, Daph." Duke held my hands in his, rubbing his thumbs over my fingers in comfort. "I promise, you're safe."
"It was so real, Duke." I managed to moan through my tears. "I could touch him, he could touch me..." I twisted my hands in my lap. "He touched me...the way he used to. For a minute, I thought he was still alive."
"It wasn't real, Daphne. I know you want to believe that it was real - "
"No, Duke!" I cried out in a panic. "No! At first, I did want to believe that it was really him, but then...he changed. He started saying these horrible things, he said he knew everything, he knew about my Trouble, he called me an abomination! He told me that I should have been killed, that Amelia and Annie, they should be killed, that we're freaks who don't deserve to live." My words grew frantic as I repeated the terrible things that the Jason in my mind had said.
"It's your subconscious, that's all. The mind can play terrible tricks on us." Duke put a calming hand on my shoulder. "You're not responsible for what happened, you couldn't control it."
"That's not the worst part, Duke." My voice dropped to the point where it was nearly inaudible. "He said I'm going to suffer for what I did, for keeping secrets. He said...he said I was born to suffer." I whispered the last past so softly that I wasn't sure that Duke heard me. I wasn't sure that I wanted him to hear me.
He'd heard. "Dreams are dreams, Daphne. That wasn't Jason, that was an image that your subconscious created. You feel guilty, so of course, your subconscious is going to filter that guilt into an image of the one person who would break your heart if those guilty thoughts were actually put into words and you heard them from him."
I realized it was futile to try to explain how real my interaction with Jason, or my mind's vision of Jason, had been. I couldn't make sense of it, all I knew was that I hadn't been dreaming. I decided to change the subject.
"I take it you drew the short straw to be my babysitter today, huh?" I'd been home from the hospital for a couple of days, but Dad was still uncomfortable with the idea of me being alone, so he and Dave had been taking turns keeping me company. Today, however, they'd taken Amelia and Annie to Bangor to visit the Maine Discovery Museum and would be gone most of the day, so Dad must have called Duke.
"I volunteered, actually." Duke pulled the desk chair to the side of the bed. "The restaurant is closed on Mondays, so I figured we could catch up."
I was genuinely touched. "You gave up your day off to hang out with me? You didn't have to do that."
"I wanted to. We really didn't get a chance to talk much the first day I found out you were back. There are things you probably need to know about what's been happening around here. It's also been fifteen years since I last saw one of my best friends and if you want to know the truth, I've missed you." Duke ducked his head sheepishly.
"Don't be embarrassed." I replied, honestly. "I missed my old partner-in-crime, too. We should have kept in touch. Why didn't we?"
"We wanted out of Haven and we didn't want reminders of why we wanted to leave so badly. We would have been a constant reminder to each other of the crappy stuff that we were leaving behind."
"True." I admitted. "The last year I lived in Haven wasn't the same without you, though. I understood why you left right after you graduated, but Haven was very different without you."
"I left you in good hands with Nathan. I knew he'd protect you." Duke handed me the cup of water on my nightstand. "I wouldn't have left if I didn't think he'd look out for you. I know everyone in this town has selective memory and likes to claim that no one is treated differently because of the Troubles, but you and I both know that's not the case."
"I'm not saying that Nathan didn't protect me. I protected him, too. But the three of us were a team, we took care of each other, Duke. We always did since we were little. When you left, things changed."
Duke didn't say anything for a couple of minutes. I wasn't sure if he thought I was angry or upset, or if he was just gathering his thoughts. Finally, he spoke again. "Things were already changing before I left, Daphne. The three of us hadn't been a team for a long time, you know that. I figured it was only a matter of time before it became obvious to you and Nathan, too, so I'd beat things to the punch."
I felt my face turning red as I realized that Duke knew much more than I'd given him credit for. "When did you find out?"
"There was a Monday in April that we had off for a teacher workday – you were a sophomore, Nathan and I were seniors. We made plans with everyone to spend the day at the lake, over by the abandoned cabin off of Route 22." Duke stared at me meaningfully. "Do you remember that day?"
I blushed. "Yeah. Stephen and Mark managed to supply enough alcohol that we were all shit-faced by noon. Melissa Newton decided to go skinny-dipping, too, do you remember? I think we were Haven's one and only nudist colony that day." I laughed. "I still can't believe you dated her. You were way too good for her. If it could be scientifically classified as a male, she'd sleep with it. And you deserved someone better than that. I saw her go in the cabin with at least three guys that day. So many people kept trying to hook up tere hat someone actually suggested that we put up a sign-up sheet with time slots."
"Ah, yes, the Hotel Hump. I think I was the only one who didn't use it that day." Duke nodded in recognition. "I saw you and Nathan go in at some point in the afternoon and thought you were upset about something, so you guys went to talk. I wanted to make sure you were okay."
As I realized what he meant, my hand flew to my mouth and I stared at him, shocked. "You didn't."
"I did. The two of you were a bit busy, so you had no idea that I'd even come in. As soon as I saw what was going on, I left, but that day was the turning point."
"Duke, I am so sorry that you found out like that." I could feel my face burning and I knew it had to be beet-red. "Stuff with Nathan...it just happened. We never meant to keep it a secret, but I don't think either of us really understood what was going on. We had no idea how to classify our relationship. We weren't a couple, we weren't dating, nothing else between us changed. We were hanging out at my house one night when my dad and Dave were in Portland for something with the paper, watching the Breakfast Club - "
"Is that still your favorite movie?" Duke asked, a twinkle in his eye.
"Always." I admitted. "I practiced putting my lipstick on from my cleavage for weeks until I could do it perfectly. And then I had to demonstrate it at every party I went to in my freshman year of college. But back to Nathan...we were watching the movie, there was a line from Molly Ringwald that just made me cry for some reason, he tried to comfort me with a hug, and the next thing I knew, we were in my bed, and I was no longer a virgin." I shrugged. "Neither of us planned it."
"That wasn't the only time, obviously. There must have been some planning at some point." Duke rolled his eyes.
"I don't think either of us expected it to go past that night. It just did. But my relationship with Nathan didn't really change."
"Except for the fact that the two of you were having sex and you didn't do much to keep it a secret from anyone."
"No one knew. We didn't tell anyone."
"You didn't think anyone knew. Come on, Daphne, you were a smart girl. Did you really think you and Nathan had kept things a secret? Everyone knew. Everyone at school, the Chief, your dad and Dave...the only way you could have been more obvious would have been to buy ad space on a billboard on King Street."
I guess I shouldn't have been so shocked, but I was. Until now, I really thought Nathan and I had kept it a secret. "My dad knew that I was having sex with Nathan? Oh, God." I shook my head to try to make that horror go away. "He never let on." I turned on Duke. "Why didn't you just say something to us, to me? I would have told you if you'd just asked."
"Did you love Nathan?" Duke asked, his tone serious. "All that time that you were sleeping together, did you have feelings for him? Did he have feelings for you?"
"When it first happened, we both thought we might have feelings for one another, but it didn't take long for both of us to realize that our feelings didn't go beyond friendship. The sex wasn't coming from anywhere romantic." I admitted, honestly. "You and Nathan were my closest friends in the world, both of you knew me as well as I knew myself, and I have always loved both of you, but only as friends. I didn't have any romantic feelings toward him, and he didn't have any for me. I don't know where the sex fit into our friendship, it just felt like another part of that friendship. Nothing else changed for us."
"You had tunnel vision, Daph." Duke retorted. "Because it changed everything between you and me. You pulled away from me, spent more and more time with Nathan, and made me feel like I wasn't as important to you as he was."
My eyes clouded with unshed tears. "I'm so sorry, Duke. I had no idea. I didn't know how much I'd hurt you. We thought we were being so careful not to tip anyone off, but if I had known that you'd found out that I was sleeping with Nathan, I would have told you immediately. Please believe me."
"You and Nathan slept together?"
Audrey's voice. Both Duke and I turned to see Audrey and Nathan standing in the doorway of my bedroom. Nathan held up the baby monitor from the living room. "You never turned it off. We came by to see how you're doing, and it was on."
I groaned. Peachy. Effing peachy. I managed a weak smile to the three of them. "So when we've finished discussing this issue, I'll tell you the story of how I started my first period when I was thirteen, sitting in 8th grade math, wearing a white linen skirt. I have a talent for self-humiliation, in case you hadn't noticed."
Son of a bitch.
